1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and an image information providing method, and particularly relates to an image forming apparatus scanning a document to provide scan data in which the document is formed into electronic data along with advertisement data, an image forming system, and an image information providing method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of methods for utilizing an image scan apparatus such as a scanner and an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) serving as a complex machine provided with a scan function and a print function is to scan a document by an image forming apparatus to provide the scan data in which the document is formed into electronic data. There is a business which exhibits an advertisement in providing the scan data, thereby offering a free or small usage fee for the image scan apparatus in forming the document into the electronic data. In one of the method for providing advertisement, the advertisement is provided by embedding the advertisement data in the scan data. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-173448 discloses such an advertisement data embedding method. On the other hand, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-197340 discloses another method for providing the advertisement through a network.
However, a user as a receiver of the scan data does not want the advertisement data to be embedded in the scan data in some cases. To those users, the above conventional method cannot provide the scan data desired by such users.